The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) announced Thursday at the Social Capital Markets conference that its financing to Kiva Microfunds has supported 98,137 microloans to 207,227 small business borrowers, across 30 countries. The majority of the borrowers – 81 percent – were women. This financing is helping alleviate poverty by enabling borrowers to start and grow their farms and businesses, access energy and educate their families.

OPIC in 2017 provided a $10 million loan to Kiva, to help the San Francisco nonprofit extend its impact and provide loans that otherwise would not have been fully funded. Skoll Foundation provided crucial philanthropic capital to the project.

Kiva was established as a platform to connect individuals lending as little as $25 with low-income entrepreneurs and students around the world who provide a description of their ventures and specify loan amounts needed. Almost one million Americans have participated so far by providing loans to entrepreneurs featured on the Kiva platform.

“OPIC’s partnership with Kiva aligns closely with our mission to advance development goals in emerging markets, and with our 2X Women’s initiative,” said David Bohigian, OPIC Executive Vice President. “The success of this partnership illustrates the significant impact that can be achieved when different forms of capital are blended together.”

Kiva works with over 300 microfinance and social enterprise Field Partners who conduct due diligence on all borrowers. Because Kiva’s borrowers have an average 97 percent repayment rate, and amounts repaid to the OPIC matching loan fund are automatically lent out again, OPIC’s $10 million loan has to date deployed $26.4 million of funds to individual borrowers.

“Kiva and OPIC are both committed to improving lives. Kiva’s partnership with OPIC has helped us establish a new model for addressing poverty and empowering individuals around the world,” said Premal Shah, Kiva’s President & Co-Founder. “The effectiveness of the partnership illustrates that institutional development finance can mobilize more resources toward the challenges our platform addresses.”

“We saw a great opportunity to work with two trusted partners to test this innovative model for Kiva,” said Skoll Foundation Principal Tim Carlberg. “A strategic injection of grant capital from Skoll allowed Kiva to attract institutional investment and to build on their expertise in direct loan delivery to micro and small entrepreneurs.”

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